Eleven more Israeli hostages have been freed from Gaza in return for dozens of Palestinians held in Israeli jails, as the two sides agreed to extend the existing ceasefire by two days.
Hamas released the hostages – nine children and two women – late on Monday, with all of them from the Nir Oz kibbutz, according to officials from the community. A further release in return for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails is scheduled to take place later on Tuesday.
The Israeli hostages released on Monday evening included three with French citizenship, two with German citizenship and six Argentinian citizens. Their return to Israel after 51 days in captivity brought “a sigh of relief to our community, however we remain deeply concerned about our loved ones that are still held hostage,” Osnat Peri, a kibbutz official, said.
Shortly afterwards, a release of a further 33 Palestinian prisoners – 30 children and three women – was confirmed by Israel’s prison authority. It was the last exchange under the initial ceasefire deal.
The extension of the truce by 48 hours has brought great relief in Israel, Gaza and beyond. But there are fears of a return to fighting when the deadline expires on Thursday morning, threatening more civilian casualties, displacement and destruction.
Israeli leaders have sworn repeatedly to secure the release of all the 240 hostages taken by Hamas last month but also to “crush” the militant Islamist organisation.
Images released by the Israeli military showed a French-Israeli child, Eitan Yahalomi, reunited with his mother, who gripped him tightly to her.
“Seeing the hostages reunited with their families and the fact that they are recovering physically gives a sense of optimism, but given their difficult, complex stories of captivity, they will have a long way to go until they are [fully] healed,” said Itai Pessach, the head of the Safra Children’s hospital.
Ido Dan, a relative of Israelis Sahar Calderon, 16, and Erez Calderon, 12, spoke of the joy at their release on Monday mixed with anxiety about their father, Ofer, who is still being held. “It is difficult to go from a state of endless anxiety about their fate to a state of relief and joy,” Dan said. “This is an exciting and heart-filling moment but … it is the beginning of a difficult rehabilitation process for Sahar and Erez, who are still young and have been through an unbearable experience.”
In a separate deal, an undisclosed number of Thai nationals were released. Most were farm workers seized along with kibbutz residents by Hamas last month.
In East Jerusalem, prisoner Muhammad Abu Al-Humus called his release “an indescribable joy” and kissed his mother’s hand as he entered his home after release from an Israeli prison, while crowds in the West Bank town of Beitunia waved green Hamas flags to greet those arriving on a coach.
Nearby there were clashes with Israeli troops close to Ofer prison, with Palestinians burning tyres and throwing stones. The Palestinian health ministry said one person was killed by Israeli forces.
Hamas announced on Monday it had agreed to extend the four-day truce, after the intervention of Qatar and Egypt, the principal mediators for the initial agreement, and with the same conditions.
Israel did not comment directly but, in what may be an implicit confirmation, the Israeli prime minister’s office said the government had approved the addition of 50 female prisoners to its list of Palestinians for potential release if additional Israeli hostages were freed.
António Guterres, the UN secretary general, hailed the extension as “a glimpse of hope and humanity in the middle of the darkness of war”.
This week, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, will pay his third wartime visit to the Middle East, meeting the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Tel Aviv and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, in Ramallah.
The US has significant concerns about the resumption of hostilities, and the nature of any new Israeli offensive. Washington is particularly worried by the prospect of a major ground invasion of southern Gaza, where most of the enclave’s 2.3 million inhabitants are concentrated in often dire humanitarian conditions.
Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defence minister, told troops on Monday that when fighting recommenced, its “strength will be greater, and it will take place throughout the entire strip”.
“You now have a few days, we will return to fighting, we will use the same amount of power and more,” he said.
Blinken “will stress the need to sustain the increased flow of humanitarian assistance to Gaza, secure the release of all hostages and improve protection to civilians in Gaza”, a senior US official said.
Washington also wants Israel to lay out a vision for future of Gaza after the war, and potentially some kind of broader settlement. So far, Netanyahu has refused to discuss the subject with allies in public or even in private, diplomatic sources said.
On his visit, Blinken will discuss “the principles he laid out for the future of Gaza and the need to establish an independent Palestinian state,” the US official added.
International pressure for an extension of the ceasefire had been intense
Guterres pushed on Monday for a full humanitarian ceasefire instead of a temporary truce, which Israel has so far resisted, and called again for the hostages held by Hamas to be released immediately and unconditionally.
One Hamas official has suggested that the militant Islamist organisation might be ready to negotiate the release of some of the military personnel seized last month. The future of these hostages has not previously been discussed.
“We hope the Occupation [Israel] abides [by the agreement] in the next two days because we are seeking a new agreement, besides women and children, whereby other categories that we have that we can swap,” Khalil Al-Hayya, a Hamas official, told Al Jazeera late on Monday.
That, he said, would entail “going towards an additional time period to continue swapping people at this stage”.
Among hostages Hamas still holds are fathers and husbands of those it has freed in recent days.
There are still more than 7,000 Palestinian prisoners detained in Israel, many of them far more prominent than the children and women freed so far. Their freedom is thought to have been one of the main objectives of last month’s attacks.
The war was triggered when Hamas broke through the perimeter fence around Gaza on 7 October and attacked communities in southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians in their homes and at a music festival. More than 240 people were abducted, including infants, elderly people, disabled people, soldiers and foreign farm workers.
Between 13,000 and 15,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli offensive launched after the Hamas attack, roughly two-thirds of them women and children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza. More than 1 million people have been forced from their homes.
At least 57 journalists and media workers have been killed in the conflict so far, the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Monday.
